More than 1,000 dental professionals, primarily dental hygienists, attended the second virtual dental hygiene conference, RDH eVent. Out of 1,896 who registered, 1,182 (68 percent) participated in the two-day conference on March 7-8 at www.rdheVent.com.
"The attendance results for RDH eVent were fantastic," said Craig Dickson, the publisher for the conference. "This attendance is about a 48 percent increase over last fall's first RDH eVent."
RDH eVent made its debut in October 2007. The third dental hygiene virtual conference will be hosted at www.rdheVent.com on Oct. 3-4, 2008. PennWell Publishing will also host the virtual DDS Tech Fair on June 6-7. The latter will address advances in dental technology for dentists and their dental practices.
Dickson said he was "impressed" by the number of unique visitors to the RDH eVent exhibitors and continuing education courses.
"The average exhibit had 750 unique visitors with the top booth having 921," he said. "The unique visitors for the CE courses were also unbelievable: 2,688.
Karen Davis, RDH, a lecturer/dental hygienist from Dallas, delivered the virtual keynote address, and 861 attendees observed her online speech. Three other dental hygienists then joined Davis in delivering virtual seminars on women's wellness, oral prophylaxes, and geriatric dentistry.
Christy DeMatteis, a dental hygienist in Prescott, Arizona, said of RDH eVent: "The speakers were very interesting, and they offered new and exciting information. The site was easy to navigate, which usually is an issue for me, the computer challenged."
The virtual conference also occurred on an early March weekend where winter weather affected many areas of the country. One attendee said, "The RDH event has been a blessing to me because I'm snowed in. I feel great that I have learned so much from the speakers and booths. I'm hoping to be a winner of one of the prizes at the end of the event."
Attendees were also eligible to win one of the more 200 prizes distributed at the conference. Most prizes were earned by the collection of "points" from visiting exhibitors' booths.
RDH eVent is closely affiliated with RDH magazine and RDH eVillage.
